<nettime> Newsvine, an invitation

[Jeremy Beaudry <jeremy@boxwith.com>]

Given this discussion thread: http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/ 
nettime-l-0511/msg00090.html ("FW: [IP] Craigslist Planning To Shake  
Up Journalism")

-- has anybody in the nettime community heard about Newsvine.com yet?  
At its core, it is a newswire (mostly AP) aggregator which also hopes  
to present citizen-journalist columns (and provide some small ad  
revenue income for said citizen-journalists in the process).  
Registered users write columns, post -- "seed" -- links, comment on  
or live chat about all of the articles, and rate articles. Recent  
articles and highly-rated articles float to the top of the pile.

At some point a while back I signed up for an invitation for the  
private beta release, and it's just now been launched. So I've got  
about a dozen or so invitations to distribute if anyone on nettime is  
interested in checking this out -- just send me an email at jeremy at  
boxwith dot com. It's a massive site, fairly well-designed, and a bit  
unruly. At this point in my exploration of it I can't say whether or  
not it offers anything better or more useful than your local  
indymedia site or the other citizen journalist sites like OhMyNews,  
Slashdot, etc. -- other than a slick user interface and some web 2.0- 
esque functionality. And the "financial rewards" part of the thing  
feels a bit weird, too.

I've pasted the text from their "About the Company" page below as well.

Best.

Jeremy

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jeremy Beaudry
http://meaning.boxwith.com
http://opensource.boxwith.com
http://BERLIN.placeinplaceof.net


*******************************
About Newsvine

Seattle-based Newsvine, Inc. was founded in 2005 by a small team of  
like-minded colleagues with one purpose: to build a perfectly  
different, perfectly efficient way to read, write, and interact with  
the news. Founded by veterans of Disney, ESPN, and other media  
organizations, the mission of Newsvine is to bring together big and  
little media in a way which respects established journalism and  
empowers the individual at the same time.

Reading on Newsvine

Established news sites like MSNBC and CNN are able to bring you a  
wealth of information from around the world mostly by editing and  
syndicating thousands of Associated Press articles every day.  
Depending on what your favorite news site is, somewhere between 70  
and 90% come from the A.P. Newsvine syndicates these exact same  
articles but takes things a step further.

Why shouldn't you, as a reader, be able to comment on every single  
article you read? After all, you may have information the original  
author did not have. How about chat? If 20 people are reading an  
article at the same time, why shouldn't they be able to discuss it  
amongst themselves afterwards?

At Newsvine, all this happens right within the story itself. Nothing  
to purchase. Nothing to install. Just start typing.

Writing on Newsvine

Aside from being the friendliest place to read your news, Newsvine is  
also a great place to write. Sign up for a free account and you'll  
have your own column within seconds. Want to write about a popular  
subject like the NFL, The Supreme Court, or mobile phones? Go ahead.  
How about a lesser known subject like your kid's little league team?  
Not a problem. As long as you "tag" your articles correctly, they  
will automatically show up in the appropriate section on Newsvine.

For instance, if you write an article about Michael Jordan's gambling  
habit, you might enter a few tags (keywords) like "michael-jordan,  
gambling, poker, addiction" in the tags field at the end of the  
article. Your article would then automatically show up on:

newsvine.com/michael-jordan
newsvine.com/gambling
newsvine.com/poker
newsvine.com/addiction
Tags are great for writers, but they are equally great for readers.  
Are you looking for news on Saddam Hussein? Just go to newsvine.com/ 
saddam-hussein. No need to even search Google.

"Seeding" Newsvine

You don't even need to be a writer to make good use of your column on  
Newsvine. Perhaps you just want to point to other news around the  
web. Save the "Seed Newsvine" button to your browser bar and you can  
publish a link to any article you've just enjoyed with one click.  
Here's an example:

You've just read a great story from Bill Simmons on ESPN.com. Click  
the Seed Newsvine button and a small window will appear. In it, you  
type:

(headline): Bill Simmons takes Alex Rodriguez to Task
(comment): Does Alex Rodriguez really think that $250 million can buy  
him happiness? As long as he's playing for the Yankees, he will  
always be in the shadow of Derek Jeter.
Then hit the Publish button and a link to that ESPN story appears  
both in your column and elsewhere around Newsvine (attributed to you  
of course). Not only is seeding Newsvine a great way to influence the  
news but it also creates a list of stories you've enjoyed for future  
reference.

So why participate by writing articles or "seeding The Vine"? Other  
than the warm-fuzzy feeling you'll get from seeing an article you  
brought into Newsvine reach the top, we want to reward you for your  
contributions by giving you all of the earnings generated by the  
content you create and recommend. Thats right, Newsvine users are  
financially rewarded in direct proportion to the value they add to  
the community by way of creating and submitting articles. We do this  
because we believe that there is a vast number of people out there  
who are experts in a particular field or on a specific topic who are  
not professional writers or journalists, yet have a lot to share. We  
want to share the wealth with those who share a wealth of information.


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